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Childbirth in Aristocratic Households of Heian Japan

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Childbirth in Aristocratic Households of Heian Japan Childbirth in aristocratic households of Heian Japan Anna Andreeva (*) (*) Cluster of Excellence «Asia and Europe in a Global Context». Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, Universität Heidelberg [email protected] Dynamis Fecha de recepción: 21 de enero de 2013 [0211-9536] 2014; 34 (2): 357-376 Fecha de aceptación: 7 de febrero de 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.4321/S0211-95362014000200005 SUMMARY: 1.—Delivery and danger. 2.—The ritual economy of childbirth. 3.—Sights, smells, colours, and sounds during the labour. 4.—Midwives and physicians. 5.—Co-existing paradigms of knowledge. ABSTRACT: This paper focuses on childbirth in Japan’s aristocratic households during the Heian period (794-1185). Drawing on various sources, including court diaries, visual sources, literary records, and Japan’s first medical collection, with its assortment of gynaecological and obstetric prescriptions, as well as Buddhist and other ritual texts, this short excursion into the cultural history of childbirth offers an insight into how childbirth was experienced and managed in Heian Japan. In particular, it addresses the variety of ideas, knowledge systems and professionals involved in framing and supporting the process of childbirth in elite households. In so doing, it casts light on the complex background of early Japanese medicine and healthcare for women. PALABRAS CLAVE: Parto, rituales de partos, parteras, médicos, periodo Heian, Japón. KEY WORDS: Childbirth, childbirth rituals, midwives, physicians, Heian Japan. 1. Delivery and danger (*) During the Heian period (794-1185), childbirth was associated with a serious risk of death, propensity for illness, pollution and danger. It was (*) This paper is a part of a larger project on the cultural history of childbirth in pre-modern Japan, which was partially conducted under the auspices of project C11 «Religion and Medicine in Pre-Modern East Asia», sponsored by the German Research Council (DFG) and Cluster of Excellence «Asia and Europe in a Global Context», during 2010-12. A subsequent version of 358 Anna Andreeva Dynamis 2014; 34 (2): 357-376 an event charged with uncertainty, where time and space inhabited by the living was believed to momentarily overlap with the realms of the dead, unseen malevolent spirits, and the Buddhist, Shinto and other deities. The probability of mortality for both the woman in labour and the infant was undoubtedly quite high. Thus, it was an event at which the presence of medical and ritual assistance and authority was required. Some of the best-known early medieval hand-painted scrolls such as the Kitano Tenjin emaki 北野天神絵巻 («The Picture Scroll of the Kitano Shrine Deity») and Gaki zôshi 餓鬼草子 («The Scroll of Hungry Ghosts») depicted the biological event of childbirth as embedded in the religious worldview of Shinto-Buddhist combinatory worship. These scenes, most likely illustrating the childbirths that took place in aristocratic households, appear to be framed by symbolic actions of a variety of specialists and different paradigms of knowledge, both medical and religious. For example, «The Scroll of Hungry Ghosts», itself a didactic device produced in the late 12th-to early 13th century, is one of the primary visual sources that illustrated the impermanence of human existence and explained the nature of transmigration; both notions were important in Buddhist ideology, a dominant framework permeating all sides of life in Japan’s pre-modern society. In compliance with the contemporary ideas and practices, this scroll depicted the dangerous nature of childbirth in the following scene 1 . At the centre of a rectangular room separated from the rest of the house by blinds and sliding doors is a parturient woman in white-coloured robes, squatting on a mat in a forward-slumping motion. Exhausted by her labour, she is looking down at a small, dark-haired baby whom she has just delivered. The baby is lying on its back in what appears to be a pool of blood and afterbirth. The parturient woman, most likely a noble lady from an elite household, is surrounded by a protective circle of her female attendants. One supports her from behind, while another offers her own shoulder, extending arms this paper was presented at the Pre-Modern Japan Seminar, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in March 2013 and at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) in Kyoto, in June 2013. 1. Gaki zôshi («The Scroll of Hungry Ghosts»), the childbirth scene. Late 12th-early 13th century. Tokyo National Museum, e-Kokuhô collection, image no. C0016935, item A-10476. Available from: http://webarchives.tnm.jp/imgsearch/show/C0016935 [cited Feb 22, 2013] Childbirth in aristocratic households of Heian Japan 359 Dynamis 2014; 34 (2): 357-376 to receive the newborn. The third attendant, seen only from her back, is sitting in the right lower corner, smashing clay dishes in a bid to ward off the unseen evil spirits’ presence. She faces an old woman in a tea-coloured robe and a white hood over her head, presumably a midwife, who seems to exude a delighted laughter. Two more women are sitting anxiously on the opposite side; one, wearing a brown cloak, is in conversation with a male courtier 2 , who has a long thin object in his hand (possibly, a bow), entering the birth room from the outer chambers of the house through the sliding door on the left. Pointing toward the baby, a female attendant is conveying the news of the child being born. Several barrels of white rice are standing on the side of the room, with more fragments of broken dishes lying about, attesting to the length of the labour. In the midst of this otherwise auspicious scene is the reminder of what was supposed to remain unseen to the protagonists of this scroll: an emaciated hungry ghost, with its red hair standing on end, a distended stomach and a large tongue protruding from its open mouth, extending its bone-thin fingers and arms towards the infant and the pool of blood into which the baby has just descended. According to the Buddhist cosmology, such hungry ghosts inhabited one of the lower realms of beings. Doomed by their bad karma to scavenge for any scraps of food, human remains or even excrement, these ghosts were believed to wander endlessly in the human realm and gather at the moments of near-fatal or border-line liminal existence, expecting to prey on the just deceased or the newly born. It was believed that childbirth with its inevitable flow of parturition blood and afterbirth, or the sites of battle with many casualties and scattered body parts, would attract these lowly and fearsome malevolent spirits. Thus, at the centre of this portrayal is the implied idea that childbirth was a risky affair, which was likely to result in mother or infant’s death, leaving a parturient woman vulnerable to the attack of the hungry ghosts preying on the parturition blood and afterbirth. Largely didactic in nature, the childbirth scene from the «Scroll of Hungry Ghosts» reflects the fragility and instability of human life as a particular plight of women and asserts the 2. Male courtiers, most likely relatives or members of court retinue, were supposed to ward off malignant spirits with a bow and arrow. Matsumoto Ikuyo, (Yokohama City University), «Parturition Rituals of Medieval Japanese Empresses: Protection of the Female Body in Esoteric Buddhism», paper presented at the workshop «Imagining the Feminine» held at the Karl Jaspers Centre, University of Heidelberg, in November 2010. 360 Anna Andreeva Dynamis 2014; 34 (2): 357-376 notion that childbirth was a critical event in women’s and newborn babies’ lives, one fraught with risk and danger. High infant and maternal mortality were constant sources of anxiety in pre-modern Japan, and miscarriages, premature births and stillborn babies were common 3 . Parturient women no doubt feared their impending labour, but at the same time, they had to accept the inevitable course of events. However, it was also believed that such dangers could be successfully averted. The childbirth scene in the «Scroll of Hungry Ghosts» further attests to such possibilities. Separated from the birth room by a wall and semi-transparent blinds is another section of the house, which represents the semi-outer space of the birth chamber, or in other words, the «outer frame» of the childbirth process. Another midwife or a court lady in dark coloured robes is seen in the doorway between the birth chamber and its neighbouring room, as if mediating the tense space between the birth chamber with the woman in labour, her attendants, midwives, the hungry ghost and the baby, and the outer room. There, on a tatami mat, is seated a Buddhist monk with a shaven head, wearing cleric’s robes, with a rosary in his hands. Engrossed in conversation with the attendant woman who points towards the scene of childbirth, the monk might be receiving further requests for chanting the sutras or performing further rituals. But that is not all. Directly opposite him is a female medium, miko, who serves as a ritual «receptacle» for the ghosts and spirits assumed to be present during the labour and childbirth. She acts as a counterpart to, or in tandem with the Buddhist cleric who is tasked with overseeing the process of her spirit possession. We can only see the miko’s flowing red trousers and abundant black hair scattered on her back. Her outer garments are pushed back, next to a flat box, in which she may keep her few ritual implements. She may have performed additional prayers; more importantly, she could still be possessed by the malignant spirit depicted in the birth room. Acting as a medium, the miko would embody the visitors from the realm of the unseen and voice their grievances, providing clues for further actions by the Buddhist cleric.
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